Playwright: Athol Fugard, John Kani, Winston Ntshona. At: Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis . Tickets: 773-753-4472; www.CourtTheatre.org; $32-$56. Runs through: June 13
Imagine living in a police state in which life is controlled by a national identity card. You need the proper stamp to live one place, another stamp to work somewhere else and a third stamp to live where you work. If you move for a job, your wife and children may not be allowed to move with you.
Such is the vicious surrealism of life for Sizwe Banzi, living in South Africa under apartheid. When he stumbles upon a dead man whose card bears the stamps he needs, Sizwe trades identities with the corpse. It's a desperate decision. By giving up his name, his history and personal truth Sizwe denies his humanity. He allows the number and stamps in a book to shape his life more than his intelligence, abilities or manhood. The plays of Athol Fugard ( this one co-authored by the original actors in the work ) always point out Apartheid's human wreckage as well as its political absurdities.
But Sizwe's story takes only half this 90-minute play. The first 45 minutes are a long monolog, spoken directly to the audience, by Styles. Unlike Sizwe Banzi, Styles has broken free of white bosses and a factory job to open his own photo studio in a Black township near Port Elizabeth. He recounts the steps to his success, observing "To stand straight in a place of your own ... to be your own supervisor. I was six feet six!" Paying forward his achievement, Styles labors to capture in his photos the dignity and pride his subjects cannot express in daily life.
Styles and Banzi are of opposite sides of the same coin, but their stories overlap only when Banzi, under his new identity, comes to have his photo taken. Then, the actor playing Styles doubles as Sizwe's friend, Buntu, when Sizwe relates his tale in a flashback. Still, the play's structure is fragile at best and the work depends on two bravura actors with interpersonal chemistry. This production, directed by Ron OJ Parson, has showmanship but lacks chemistry.
Without question, Allen Gilmore is skillful and impassioned as Sizwe Banzi, by turns ineffably sad and puckishly playful, and Chike Johnson brings warm confidence and understated determination to Styles/Buntu. But some link between the twobeyond respectful harmonyis missing. Parson down-plays the work's comedythere usually is a lotand that could be what's missing between actors and audience and between the actors themselves, although each man inhabits his character deeply. Also, it can be difficult to pick up story details and expository information, so very thick are the actors' South African accents. Viewed today, the play is part historical document and part cautionary tale against abusive state power, and both aspects require our attention.